


Bulletproof

by Rat_chan



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-29 13:00:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15729900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rat_chan/pseuds/Rat_chan
Summary: Mac awakens in a hotel room, naked, to the after-effects of a drug, marks on his body, and a familiar voice echoing hazily in his memory."Be seeing you, MacGyver."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set sometime after season 2, episode 8. and before season 2, episode 11. So Cage is still around and Bozer is away at spy school. Kind of AU (because no way episode 15 would have gone down that way if this had happened).

_Tingling… Pulsing… Heat… Euphoria…_

He could not say that he was _aware_ of those sensations – they were far too remote – but those were the waves that were distantly lapping at the shores of his consciousness.

_Pain… Pleasure… Friction… Release…_

The shores were closer now and the waves were stronger. They were beginning to make him feel a little seasick as his awareness became less a remote island than a boat drifting in a storm of sensory input.

_Warmth… Gentle pressure…_

At last there were concrete feelings to begin anchoring him to reality. Mac felt a warm, solid presence against his back. He made an involuntary, inarticulate sound of protest when it began to draw away, but quieted when he realized that the warmth was merely shifting, not departing. A strangely cool hand traced the length of his arm down to his hand before entwining their fingers in a grip that was both intimate and dominating. Moist, heated breath caressed the shell of his ear as lips came close to whisper.

_“Be seeing you, MacGyver.”_

\-- -- -- -- --

Mac bolted upright in bed, breath gasping, pulse racing erratically, and an unsteady hand going immediately to his throbbing head. The morning sunlight streaming in the open curtains sent further knives of pain through his skull and agitated his stomach. The over-bleached smell of the bedding around him sharpened the nausea.

More than anything, however, it was the dread that had awakened him and the overwhelming _wrongness_ to which he had awakened that had him forcing himself to take slow, deep breaths.

_Where am I? What happened to me?_

Those two questions swirled in his still fuzzy brain – tried to take over the controlled rhythm of his breathing with their own panicked rapidity.

He shaded his eyes and took a cautious look around him and had the where? partly answered. He was in a modest-sized, generically decorated hotel room. The light was on in the bathroom and its door was open. The closet was also half open, conveniently showing that it was as empty as the bathroom reflected in its mirrored door panel. The painfully bright view out the window overlooked most of the surrounding, also generic, buildings. Still, the general atmosphere seemed to indicate he was still somewhere in Los Angeles.

As for what had happened to him… He closed his eyes, trying to lessen the pain and focus his attention on memory, however it tried to elude him.

_We were out of beer._ He had made a quick trip to the nearest liquor store to restock. _There was… someone… shaking…_ His mind struggled in vain to reconstruct the image of a stranger and... an Epipen? But pain kept intruding. Pain in his head. Tenderness when every deep breath lightly brushed his nipple against his bent arm. A deep, slow-burning ache inside.

_That was no Epipen._ Dread and nausea returned, yet Mac still opened his eyes and moved his subtly trembling hand from his face. _There._ On his left bicep there was an injection mark. And above it, on his shoulder, there was a reddish mark. _No…_ An imprint of teeth on his collarbone. A reddened, almost abraded nipple.

“No…” It was more a shaky breath than a word as his eyes took in the white fluid drying on his abdomen … still leaking from inside him to dampen the sheets below him, but doing nothing to mask the finger-shaped bruise darkening on his thigh.

His inarticulate negation was choked by bile as the smell of _sex_ overwhelmed him. He bolted for the bathroom, nearly not making it as he grayed out on the way.  He managed to get the lid and seat of the toilet up before his stomach violently ejected what little it contained. He clutched at cool porcelain as he was wracked by dry heaves.

_Who?_ Mac thought as he finally collapsed against the hotel bathtub. _Do I even want to know?_

The words in his… dream? echoed back to him, bringing the acrid taste of returning bile with them. He pushed himself up and went to the sink to rinse out his mouth. He picked up one of the cheap plastic cups that had been left on the counter and almost dropped it before he fumbled it out of its wrapping.

_Definitely LA._ For the moment, he focused on the reassuring, familiar awfulness of that tap water as he swished it around, spat it out, and repeated. _Chlorine on the nose._ He tried to distract himself as he refilled the cup to drink this time. _Metal… on the… palette…_

He made the mistake of looking in the mirror as he drank. The glaring light of the hotel bathroom illuminated them all garishly – every last mark left on his body. All the ones he had already seen and more. A bite on his left earlobe and another to his lower lip… A hickey below his right jawbone, another near the hollow of his throat, more on his sternum… _Everywhere._ He turned away, but there was his whole, stained, naked body reflected in the closet door.

His exit from the bathroom was as rapid as his entrance had been. His escape from the mirrors, however, only presented him with rumpled bed and all the implications tangled in the bedsheets. So, even though the light still stabbed into his skull, he moved cautiously to the window.

_RING._

“Shit,” Mac swore softly as the hotel phone startled him. His gaze shifted from the window to the desk beside it and locked on the phone. Several more soft, digitized rings sounded before his heart rate slowed enough for him to be ready to answer it. _Please don’t be…_

“Good morning, MacGyver.” But it was. Of course it was.

“Murdoc,” he spat out the name like it was more bile – it certainly tasted like it. His grip tightened on the slender receiver in his hand.

“It is so _good_ to see you awake and alert already after—” The psychopath’s voice stopped for a moment as Mac hastily pulled the curtains shut. “Now, now. There’s no need for such modesty after last night.”

_He has eyes on me._ He moved as far out of line with the window as the phone’s cord allowed. _Of course he does._

“Nothing to say?” The killer’s voice walked its usual line of taunting and inviting.

“What…” _Don’t ask! Hang up!_ “You…” _Call the team. Get a trace running._ Disparate parts of Mac’s mind argued as he fought the words out. “What did you do to me?”

“Tsk, tsk. You mean what did _we_ do!” If he could have felt any more ill at that point, the layers of syrup and suggestion in _that voice_ would have done it. “Although a better question would be: what _didn’t_ we do?”

“You… you raped me.” Somehow, his voice did not break on the word.

“I and, more pertinently, your new phone beg to differ. It’s right there on the desk. Go on.”

_Don’t._ Panic or instinct warned Mac as he moved back to the desk and unlocked the burner phone that lay there. _Don’t do it._ The phone opened to a voice memo. _Don’t play his game._ The voice in his head sounded like Jack.

_But I have to know._ He shifted the land line to his left hand and with his right, tapped the play icon and heard… himself… panting and moaning.

“ _Ooh._ You sound even better than I remember!” The genuine excitement that now filled that voice made him retch, drawing another gleeful sound from Murdoc. “Now, I really wanted you to cry out my name as you came in my hand…” Mac stopped the recording before it could get to that alluded climax. “But one can’t have _quite_ everything, I suppose.”

“You _drugged_ me,” he reminded both of them while he hit the trash icon on the screen. His eyes darted over the desk, from the phone with the room number tagged on it, to the lamp, to the hotel stationary. _Why do hotels never have paper clips?_ He needed something for his hands to do. The burner phone would have to do.

“I’m sure that if I splice the right bits of video together that little, um, fact won’t be as obvious to all your friends at the Phoenix Foundation.” Mac’s fingers, busy repeatedly typing and then deleting phone numbers, stilled at that.

_He has video._ “They won’t believe it.” _But they’ll_ know.

“Oh, they won’t believe _me_ , but a moving picture has to be worth more than a thousand words.” The recorded sounds of forced pleasure echoed from the other end of the connection this time. “Especially one as… mm-mm, _compelling_ as this one is.”

Mac pressed his hand to his mouth, holding in the sounds of sickness this time. The thought of any one of his friends and colleagues, let alone _all_ of them, seeing that… His imagination offered vivid images of their horrified faces, all interspersed with Murdoc’s malevolent smirk.

“Why?” He asked when he was finally capable of speech.

“Why not, MacGyver. There you were and there I was and—”

“Bullshit, Murdoc.” Anger. Anger was good right now.

“Language, Angus! Didn’t your father teach you… Oh, that’s _right_! He didn’t.”

“That’s not going to work this time, you sadistic bastard.” He did not delete the last number he had inputted and instead started typing. “You tell me _why_.”

“ _That._ That _is_ why. You see, even you would stop reacting to the daddy issue jibes sooner or later sooo…” Murdoc interrupted himself with a brief, gleeful chuckle. “I found new buttons to push.” His voice dropped lower as he added, “And this time, not all of them make you angry.”

Mac’s finger stilled over the send icon. _He’ll make me relive it._ Fear, anger, revulsion, and shame tangled together to make a single, tight knot of misery in his gut. _He’ll make all of us relive it over and over and then he’ll do it again._ His hands started trembling again, shaking his finger against the button on his screen.

A code word, the hotel’s phone number, his room number, and a request for a trace went through to Riley.

_Oh, he can try._ Riley’s voice seemed to say in his head as her initial texted reply of “ _Mac_!?” was unhesitatingly followed by a simple “ _On it_.”

_But he won’t succeed._ Jack’s imagined voice offered as an additional message popped up. “ _All on it_.”

“You planning on doing this again?” Mac did not have to feign the fear in his voice – the fear he knew Murdoc was craving.

“Oh, I think next time I’ll…” The sociopath cut off his menacing promise and was silent for a moment. When he continued, he sounded gleeful again. “Calling the cavalry _and_ stalling for time?” Of course he knew. “I knew you had it in you, MacGyver.” A single handclap sounded through the connection. “So pleased.”

“I’m sure the team will be pleased to see you, too.” It was all the snappy comeback Mac could manage at the moment.

“Much as I’d _love_ to stay and hear Jack threaten to kill me and Matilda promise to make earrings out of my testicles—”

“They can do it, you know.” It was a comforting thought.

“Hm. Maybe, maybe not.”

“You could surrender now.”

“A thoughtful offer. Just like I thoughtfully left you your clothes and all the clean towels.” Murdoc was already pressing those new buttons. “You’ll have to be quick making yourself _presentable_ to the team.”

The sound of the dial tone came almost simultaneously with a text from a blocked number. “ _Be seeing you_.” With a god damned kiss emoji.

Mac just dropped both phones. He was not even sure what he was shaking from at that moment. Drugs? Emotion? A violent reaction of the two, catalyzed by shame?

_They’ll find out sooner or later._ So sooner was better. Right? _But not like this._

“God damned son of a bitch,” again he swore uncharacteristically as he returned to the bathroom. That bastard had somehow even made showering part of _his_ sick little game.

“God damned son of a bitch,” he repeated, trying to focus on anger. Just anger. Not the mirrors. Not his own body.

Not what would happen next.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Phoenix team had only heard the tail-end of Mac & Murdoc's phone conversation, but it was enough. Even if she hoped she was wrong, Samantha Cage knew what she'd find in Mac's hotel room.

Samantha Cage needlessly checked the position of her holstered weapon and her spare clips. They were in as perfect readiness as they had been when she and Jack had left the Phoenix Foundation.

And she was sure they were not the weapons she was going to need today.

“Hold up, Jack.” She lifted a hand to check her teammate. “Matty said to hold here until she gave the go ahead.” Even with the lightest touch on the man’s arm, she could feel the tension in it.

“What are we waiting for?” Emotion rendered his Texan accent even thicker than usual. “That psycho could be doing _anything_ to Mac up there.” His lightly tinted glasses did nothing to conceal the fear in his eyes.

“Come on, Jack. We heard enough of that phone conversation to know that Murdoc’s not up there anymore.” _More than enough._ “He’s got line of sight on Mac or, more likely, he’s long gone by now.”

“How do we know he didn’t—”

“Because I’ve got all the cameras in that hotel and on the street, Jack,” Riley said over the comms.

“And he could have avoided them!”

“Which is why you are each going to take a team with you.” Matty’s usual brusque, clipped tone came over the comms. “Cage, you do a floor by floor up to Mac’s room. Jack, I want you to sweep every rooftop and window with line of sight on that hotel.”

_Good._ Matty still agreed with the quiet advice Cage had given before departing. _“Jack can’t be the first person in that room.”_ The Director had nodded silently, the tight set of her shoulders and the hint of grimness in her expression giving her away. She had drawn the same conclusions as Cage had from that fragment of traced phone call. The conclusion that the rest of the team would not quite allow themselves to reach.

“Matty, I—”

“ _You_ are going to catch that psychopath, Dalton, and you’re going to bring him in in one piece.”

“Yeah. One big ole _dead_ piece.” It sounded like his usual half-joking tone, but there was no humor in Jack’s eyes as he pulled out his gun, checked his clip for the tenth time, and tucked it back in its holster.

“Alive, Dalton.” The usual semi-affectionate exasperation in Matty’s tone was subsumed by genuine anger, but not at the man she was scolding. “That room was booked using one of Mac’s aliases. That sick, twisted son of a bitch kidnapped one of _my_ people and he used Phoenix Foundation money to do it. So, you are going to bring him in alive, in one piece, so that I can have him slowly drawn and quartered.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Jack gestured to his team as he moved out from under the overhang in front of the hotel lobby. He shot Cage one last, intense look before moving out of sight.

_I’ll take care of your boy, Jack._ She silently promised as she cautiously made her way around to where her team waited at the emergency exit.

“Any word from MacGyver himself?” she asked quietly as they cleared the stairwell and the hallway on each floor.

“Kind of,” Riley answered. “Cameras picked up what I assume was his hand putting the ‘do not disturb’ sign on his door.” The hacker’s voice was taut with worry. “He set that burner phone to auto-reply ‘busy’ and when he finally answered the hotel phone all I got out of him was ‘Murdoc’s gone’ and ‘I’m fine.’”

“That doesn’t sound ‘fine’, Riley.”

“I know, Jack.”

“He’s alive,” Cage reminded them as she reached Mac’s floor – the top floor. To her team she said, “Hold out here. I’m going in alone.” She walked to the room door. The draft coming from the gap underneath it was saturated with the smell of cheap soap. “Matty, I’ll be going off comms once I get in there.”

“Understood.”

“Mac,” she called at the door. “It’s me – just me.” Part of her still hoped that the gentle coaxing would be unnecessary. “Can I come in?”

The only reply she got was the rustling sound of movement on the other side of the door, and then it opening. And confirming her worst suspicions in an instant.

_Shit._ Every last button, from cuffs to collar, was closed on Mac’s shirt. A hotel towel was draped over his head, though his hair was clearly long-dried. And he would not meet her eyes as he moved aside to let her in before quickly closing the door behind them.

“How is he, Cage? Talk to me.”

“He’s… he’s _uninjured_ , Jack.” It was the best balance of truth and reassurance she could manage. “You catch that bastard now,” she added before pulling the comm out of her ear to show Mac she was switching it off.

“He won’t find him.” He finally spoke, his voice hoarse.

“He’s got to try.” Cage turned to face him. “How are…” _Stupid question._ He looked pale and held himself as if he were in moderate pain. He was fidgeting with his Swiss Army Knife in his right hand and his left was clenching and unclenching continuously around one end of the towel. “What did…” _Beyond stupid question._ Neither clothing nor towel could fully conceal the marks on Mac’s skin. “Did you…” Her eyes slid over him to what he had left on the room’s kitchenette counter. “Did you make a steam cleaner from a hairdryer and a hotel coffee maker?”

The ghost of a smile curved his bitten lips and he almost met her eyes. “Not a great one,” he said as he picked it up. He meticulously avoided both touching and looking at the bed as he moved to the window curtains. “But Matty ordered me via text to stay here.” He plugged in the makeshift device and proceeded to demonstrate it. “I needed something to do.” The smile disappeared. “And I couldn’t take the smell anymore.” He switched off the machine and set it on the desk before dropping himself into the desk’s chair, towel falling from his head. He did not seem to notice as he stared blankly at the curtains.

“It looks like a serious fire hazard, Mac.” She followed him across the room. Her gaze took in the bedding, which had been clearly saturated by soapy steam.

“Oh, it’s perfectly safe.” He actually turned toward her. “Probably.”

“There’s that word again.” She smiled slightly as she gestured to the armchair that was beside the desk. “May I?”

“Go ahead.” Habitually polite, he even swiveled the desk chair so that at least his ear was turned toward her. There was a bite mark on it.

“Mac.” Reflexively, Cage’s hand curled into a fist. She quickly shifted her gaze to the makeshift cleaner again – she could not allow herself to be angry now. “Seriously, I think I just saw that thing spark.”

“Fine, fine.” He half rolled his eyes as, with an exasperated sigh, he unplugged his machine from the desk socket. “Better now?” He turned fully toward her with a raised eyebrow and half of a smile.

“Much, thank you.” She made full eye contact and returned the grin.

Only to watch his expression crumble as his hand went to his head. She swiftly leaned down to pick up the towel he was just now missing. She proffered it to him, but said, “It’s not like you to hide, Mac.”

“I…” He stared at the towel while the hand he had reached toward it hovered over it, fingers trembling and subtly opening and closing. “I can’t…”

“You can’t hide.” She kept her gaze locked on his face until it compelled him to meet it. “And you can’t make it go away.”

“You think I don’t know that!” It was somewhere between a shout and a cry. He snatched the towel from her hands and bunched it into a rough ball. She saw the redness and slight glimmer in his eyes before he swiveled the chair away from her and threw the balled towel into a corner. “You think I don’t know that _everyone_ will know what happened as soon as they see me?”

“And what exactly happened?”

“I don’t know!” His hands went up to his bent head, fingers pressing into his temples. “I can’t…” His whole body moved with the deep breath he took. “Murdoc…” He loosed the breath in something between a gasp and a cry. His hands shifted to cover his face. “I can’t talk about it.”

“Not yet,” Cage agreed with him as she rose and moved in front of him. “But maybe you can listen?” When he did not offer any refusal, she knelt down and carefully placed a hand on the metal below the arm of his chair. “Murdoc drugged you.” She did not need his confirmation – not that he offered any. “He drugged you and he hurt you. Sadly, it happens in our line of work.” He still did not uncover his face or offer any response beyond a slight shaking of his head. “There’s not one man or woman on this team who hasn’t experienced that or seen it happen to a comrade.”

Mac’s hands dropped to his lap, but he would not meet her gaze. He looked at the desk lamp, but Cage could still see the toxic cocktail of emotion that clouded his eyes. “This is different.” His voice was soft and raspy.

“Of course it is.” Startled by her frank non-denial, he met her eyes again. She made sure that nothing beyond her sincerity filled her gaze. “But at the same time, it isn’t.”

“You don’t understand.” She almost wished he had shouted it. His quiet pain was harder for her to unflinchingly meet. “I think I… That he made me…” Shame overwhelmed the mix of feelings in his gaze.

“He _made_ you, Mac.” Her other hand rose to the other arm of the chair. “He drugged you and forced you to do things. It’s not so different.”

“But…”

“You’re telling me that soldiers have never been forced to betray themselves?” She raised an eyebrow in preemptive challenge of any argument. “Do you believe that agents should somehow be immune to psychotropic drugs?” Her memory flashed to something she had read in an old mission dossier. “That a strong enough person, like, say, Jack Dalton, would never reveal their entire organization to the enemy while dosed with sodium pentothal?”

“Jack?” Mac’s body subtly relaxed and the pained creases around his eyes smoothed. “He sang like a canary.” Cage pulled back from the chair, giving him room to move as positive memory reanimated him. “He even asked for a hug, saying ‘I love you, buddy.’”

She laughed along with him. “I wish I’d been there.”

“He’ll deny the whole thing if you ask him about. Say he doesn’t… remember…” His face fell again as the present reasserted itself.

“Mac.” She took light hold of the chair again. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I… I know.” He was looking at the lamp again.

“You kind of _know_. And soon, you’ll actually _understand_.” That brought his gaze back to her, the faintest twinkle of his usual curiosity added to the mix of emotion. “Murdoc had you in his sights and he took aim.” She willed steel into her own gaze as she continued. “But what he doesn’t realize – what he is _incapable_ of realizing – is that you have a vest for this.”

They both jumped a little as Cage’s phone vibrated them both with an incoming text. She pulled it out and glanced at Matty’s order to turn her comm back on. “You’ve got a vest,” Cage repeated as she got to her feet and put her comm back on. “And we got you covered. Cage here,” she said to the waiting team.

“Perimeter’s clear,” Matty’s crisp voice came over the comm instantly. “Murdoc got away, rabbitty bastard.”

“I’m coming up,” Jack said in a tone that brooked no argument.

“Alright, Dalton. You can escort us down.” Cage looked down at Mac questioningly as she spoke. He nodded hesitantly, but he started breathing a bit faster.

“ _Act natural_ ,” she texted to Jack.

“ _Natural is my middle name_ , _”_ was the unsurprising reply.

“Well Mac, looks like it’s checkout time.” She held out a hand to him. He drew in a deep breath and then took it. She smiled at him as she gently pulled him out of the chair and to the door.

“Housekeeping!” Jack called out in an atrocious falsetto as he knocked on the door.

Mac rolled his eyes, but he was almost smiling as he opened the door. “Can’t you read? It says ‘do not disturb’.”

“I’m so sorry, sir, but…” The older man’s continued high pitched act faltered as he looked at his friend. Before Cage had to shoot him a warning glare, however, he pulled himself together. He looked steadily into Mac’s eyes and continued, “usually you’ve taken _something_ apart by now.”

“Oh, just the coffee maker _and_ the hairdryer.” Cage answered for him.

“I am not even gonna ask what you did with those.” Jack waved his left hand in front of himself, a mock grimace on his face. His right hand was clenched in a white-knuckled fist at his side, the leather band above it undulating with straining muscles.

“Good,” Mac replied, his own posture becoming more relaxed and more like his usual. “Because my head hurts too much to explain it in ‘non-science-y’ terms.”

“Well medical is standing by and…” Jack once again had to struggle to continue calmly and “naturally” as he noticed Mac flinch at those words. “And I’m sure Matty will have your usual suite at the hospital booked.”

“Jack,” Cage interrupted. “We left that burner phone on the desk. Riley should definitely look it over.”

“I’ll get it.” He rushed into the room. Mac flinched again at the thought of what they might find on the phone. She just caught his attention and tapped a finger near her shoulder, where the slight scar from her own encounter with Murdoc was.

“Now don’t you two do anything helpful, like run ahead and push for the elevator.” Dalton’s eyes were still looking a little misted and the knuckles of his right hand looked grazed, but his mock-aggrieved tone and expression were otherwise usual.

“I thought you said I needed medical attention?” Mac shrugged at him, attempting a smile again.

“Alright, alright. I guess I’ll get that, too!” Jack waved both hands in the air this time as stomped over to the elevator.

The younger man started to follow, then stopped. He took a deep, ragged breath.

“You’re going to be okay, Mac,” Cage told him. When he met her eyes, she added, “probably.”

With another ghost of a smile, Mac followed his friend to the elevator.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The time setting (episode-wise) for this fic was chosen primarily because 1- Bozer needed to be away or they would have missed Mac sooner, and 2 - I felt Cage would be the best one to handle this. I don't feel I write comfort as well as I write hurt, so I didn't want to drag it out.
> 
> Back to the hurt element, I may revisit this with a rewrite of 2x15 Murdoc + Handcuffs with this at backstory, but... 1- I love the banter in that episode too much to really want to do that. And 2 - I have 1-shots, protracted torture porn, and a Wild West AU (kind of) to get out of my system.


End file.
